THE HINDU , PIB CURRENT NEWS ANALYSIS 7 FEB 2018

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News Analysis: 07-02-2018

National News

General Studies-II : Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary

‘Likely misuse no ground to strike down Aadhaar’

Details:

The mere possibility of misuse cannot be a ground for striking down the Aadhaar Act, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud orally observed during a Constitution Bench hearing on the validity of the unique identity scheme on Tuesday.

It observed that if the government wanted information about a person it could access it even without the help of Aadhaar.

The apex court had already acknowledged the availability of personal data in the public domain in its privacy judgment.

Even consent given to private entities is only “notionally consensual”, Justice Chandrachud observed. It was thus that the court had called for a strong data protection regime in order to arm citizens against data breaches by both the state and private entities.

Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 to show that the Aadhaar number could be used to “establish the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the state or any body corporate or person, pursuant to any law for the time being in force.”

Justice Chandrachud agreed that Section 7 of the 2016 Act only required Aadhaar for services, benefits and subsidies for which funds were drawn from the Consolidated Fund of India.

Aadhaar cannot be connected to a universe of other things other than services, subsidies and benefits which has a nexus to the Consolidated Fund

Source-The Hindu

General Studies-III : Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.

RBI likely to keep repo rate on hold

Details:

The six-member monetary policy committee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is meeting for the last time in this financial year, is expected to maintain status quo for the third straight review meeting as retail inflation is hovering close to the central bank’s upper tolerance limit.

Rising food prices was one of the main reason behind this 17- month-high retail inflation.

Economists said there could be further pressure on inflation with rising oil prices and higher minimum support prices for the farmers, as promised in the Union Budget last week.

All these would mean RBI is holding the repo rate or the key policy rate at 6% with a hawkish tone, though the stance of the policy could continue to stay neutral.

Bond yields have been rising since the Budget was presented, and after the government missed the fiscal deficit target and pushed back the glide path of attaining the fiscal deficit target of 3% to 2020-21 as compared to 2018-19.

Next year’s fiscal deficit target of 3.3% is also under cloud as revenue projections are seen as optimistic.

India on Tuesday successfully test-fired its short-range nuclear capable ballistic missile Agni-1 with a strike range of over 700 km from a test range off the Odisha coast

The indigenously developed surface-to-surface missile was launched as a part of a periodic training activity by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Army to consolidate operational readiness

The sophisticated Agni-I missile is propelled by a solid rocket propellant system and is equipped with a specialised navigation system that ensures it reaches the target with a high degree of precision

India’s tiger census, which began late last year, will see coordination with Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh in estimating the territorial spread of the animal in the subcontinent.

While India has engaged with Nepal and Bangladesh in previous tiger counts, this is the first time all countries are uniting in arriving at tiger numbers, particularly in regions with shared borders.

Since 2006, the WII — a Union Environment Ministry-funded body — has been tasked with coordinating the tiger estimation exercise.

The once-in-four-years exercise calculated, in 2006, that India had only 1,411 tigers. This rose to 1,706 in 2010 and 2,226 in 2014 in later editions on the back of improved conservation measuresand new estimation methods.

Along with tigers, the survey also collects information on the prey population of deer and other animals.

Forest guards have Android phones and an app to storedata. Officials said one challenge in past censuses was that a sighting, or traces of a tiger’s presence, had to be manually logged in. This led to errors in location data.

Source-The Hindu

International News:

General Studies-II : Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests

Palestine asks Modi to mediate

Details:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Palestine this week is “historic” and will be important in the West Asian peace process, says a key diplomatic official in Ramallah, indicating a greater role for India in the political process with the decline of the U.S. role in mediation.

“We are asking the European Union and EU countries to mediate, and we are inviting India, which will be a strong leader in a multipolar world, to assist the process.”

Mr. El-Khaldi’s words are significant as they come during a period of intensive engagement between New Delhi and West Asia.

After Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to India last month, the government is pivoting its interests to Israel’s rivals: with the PM travelling to Jordan, Palestine, Oman and the UAE this week, and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visiting Saudi Arabia.

Source-The Hindu

General Studies-II : India and its neighborhood- relations.

Nasheed seeks Indian military intervention in Maldives

Details:

Exiled former President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed on Tuesday sought India’s military intervention in the country to release dissidents in prison.

However, three Supreme Court judges annulled a portion of the order that set off a crisis in the Maldives, revoking the earlier order for releasing the nine Opposition leaders including Mr. Nasheed, who is currently in Colombo.

The development comes on the day that the Chief Justice and a Supreme Court judge were arrested, after troops stormed the Supreme Court in the wee hours.

It follows President Abdulla Yameen’s declaration of a state of emergency on Monday.

Since Mr. Yameen took control of the overwhelmingly Muslim country of about 4,27,000 people in 2013, his government has faced heavy criticism over the detention of opponents, political influence over the judiciary and the lack of freedom of speech.

Located near key shipping lanes, the Maldives have assumed greater importance after China began building political and economic ties as part of its so-called ‘String Of Pearls’ strategy to build a network of ports in the Indian Ocean region.

India issued another statement of concern over the growing crisis in the Maldives, but didn’t respond to former President Mohamed Nasheed’s appeal for military intervention.